But
the Players rightly had a plural name. We were, and are, a
collection of many individuals -- actors, authors, artists, and
art-lovers -- all fired with the sincere desire to give to
playgoers something they had not been able previously to find on
the American stage. And our desire has been strong enough to face
and fight, and to continue to face and fight, the ever-growing,
ever-changing problems of finance, art, and human
inter-relations, which are the inescapable factors of the
theatre.
We believed in the democracy of the drama. But we understand
democracy to mean, not the gratification of the taste of the many
to the exclusion of that of the few, but the satisfaction of all
tastes. We had no quarrel with the stage as it was, save that
there wasn't enough of it. We felt there was a public that wanted
something other than it could get -- as evidenced by the rise of
such institutions as the Drama League -- and that that public was
large enough to support what it wanted once it learned where to
find it. The problem was to bridge the gap of waiting. And it was
met by the sacrifices of all those who worked at first for
nothing, and then for little more, so that the Players would not
fall into debt in the process of reaching an audience.
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